November 14, 2024 | International, Aerospace
September 16, 2020 | International, Naval
Austal Expanding Yard In Alabama as It Eyes New Unmanned, Amphibious Shipbuilding Programs
Austal USA is expanding the capacity and capability of its Alabama shipyard, doubling down on investing in its future in a way reminiscent of 2009, just before it won the block buy of Littoral Combat Ships that secured the yard a spot in the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.
The Mobile yard this month closed on the purchase of a ship repair facility formerly owned by World Marine of Alabama, an indirect subsidiary of Modern American Recycling and Repair Services of Alabama. It includes a 20,000-ton Panamax-class floating dry dock, 100,000 square feet of covered repair facilities and 15 acres of waterfront property along the Mobile River and Gulf of Mexico, according to a company statement.
Shipyard President Craig Perciavalle told USNI News this week that the expansion fits in with its desires to continue building aluminum ships and to expand into building steel ships – manned or unmanned – as well as a desire to take on more repair work for the Navy and other customers.
“We feel we're putting ourselves, and we've put ourselves, in a very good place to continue to provide very capable but lower-cost ships to the Navy,” he said of the yard that today builds Independence-variant LCSs and Expeditionary Fast Transit (EPF) ships.
“I have had some discussions with [Defense Secretary Mark] Esper, we are encouraged by the plan for, the need and the requirement for 355 ships or more maybe. And I think there's plenty of opportunities for us to help the Navy grow the fleet, and we're putting ourselves in a very good position to help the Navy do that long-term.”
The yard expansion gives Austal ownership of a dry dock it was leasing to launch its ships into the Mobile River, eliminating any schedule problems the yard had to worry about in the past if its desired timeline didn't match up with the dry dock's availability to be leased.
“We'll just have complete control over it, and then we can have the priority for the dry dock be supporting our business, first and foremost,” Perciavalle said.
He added that the rest of the facility, on the other side of the river and just south of Austal's property, could be refurbished or upgraded in the future to support ship construction or repair activities as needed, giving Austal some flexibility as its future workload becomes clearer.
Many in the Navy and industry have expressed concern about Austal's future, with the company's LCS construction coming to an end in a couple years – four ships are in construction at Austal and four more are in pre-construction – and its future with the EPF program still uncertain, as the Navy and Congress haven't made any firm decisions about continuing the hot production line to build an ambulance ship variant of the hull. Austal competed to build the Navy's FFG(X) frigate program and lost, leaving many wondering what would happen to the yard, its workforce and its suppliers.
Perciavalle said he's not worried about the yard's future.
“It's no secret that we're focused on the unmanned side of the business, we think there's obviously plenty of opportunities there and we're going to, hopefully – our plan is to be a major player in that side of the market,” he said. Austal is one of six companies selected to conduct industry studies on the Navy's Large Unmanned Surface Vessel, and Austal also participated in the LUSV precursor by converting a vessel to an unmanned ship through the Pentagon's Overlord USV prototype effort.
“We are encouraged by discussions around additional EPFs going forward. EPF-15 has been in and out of the budget, and the latest discussions show that there might be some opportunities for that to get back in. I think it's no secret that we've been looking at expeditionary medical ships that have been discussed, and we feel we're in a pretty good place to support those needs to the Navy,” he continued, with the Congress this current fiscal year appropriating money to give EPF-14 a greater medical capability.
“And then from a steel shipbuilding perspective, there's certainly opportunities from that medium-sized type vessel: [Light Amphibious Warship] is one that we've been participating in. We have participated in some of the industry studies on [the Coast Guard's Offshore Patrol Cutter]. And without getting into much more detail beyond that, there's opportunities that exist across the board that we're going to continue to look at and to pursue. “
Asked by USNI News if the range of work – from unmanned vessels to amphibious ships to Military Sealift Command support ships to Coast Guard cutters – spurred Austal to take a leap of faith and expand the shipyard now, Perciavalle said, “this is something that Austal's done in the past, so been there done that. We leaned into the facility that we have today, committing much of those funds before (LCS) block buys were even awarded back in the ‘09 and 2010 time period. We have seen where the Navy looks like they're going, and we're leaning into those requirements going forward. There seems to be opportunities both on the steel ship side of things as well as aluminum, and we're going to leverage our strength and what we've been able to do from an aluminum perspective, and take those same strengths and transition adding the steel capabilities.”
“So yeah, it's pretty interesting times, it's pretty exciting. We've proven in the past that we're pretty darn good at building lots of ships in a relatively short period of time. I think we've delivered 23 surface ships to the Navy over the last just over seven and a half years,” he continued.
“We believe there's value in that for the Navy and trying to expand to 355 in a reasonable timeframe, and I think leveraging the industrial base that we have here in Mobile is going to be important to the Navy's ability to do that.”
In addition to the physical expansion of the yard through the recent acquisition, Austal and the Defense Department are spending $100 million to bring a steel shipbuilding capability to the yard that today only builds aluminum ships. DoD offered its half under the Defense Production Act Title III (DPA) Agreement “to maintain, protect, and expand critical domestic shipbuilding and maintenance capacity,” according to a DoD announcement. The money, appropriated as part of the coronavirus pandemic relief bill passed by Congress in the spring, will not only help the Navy industrial base but will “accelerat[e] pandemic recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast region” by supporting the economy.
Perciavalle said the yard decided to match the contract with its own $50 million investment in the steel shipbuilding capability.
Perciavalle said another growth area for Austal is likely to be ship repair, though the Navy has not made its intentions public yet.
Austal is somewhat challenged in that every single LCS it has built is stationed in San Diego, which is a Panama Canal transit away. The San Diego ship repair industrial base is under pressure to keep up with the Navy's growing surface ship maintenance and modernization needs, and although Austal has a support office in San Diego and can contribute to pier-side work at the naval base, it cannot take on maintenance availabilities on its own yet.
“The Navy's aware of our interest in expanding our service business, and I think given the fact that they're looking for increased capacity in that regard, I think it's welcome,” he said.
“And then we'll just see how things go both here in Mobile, obviously continuing to support efforts on the West Coast, and then in Singapore,” where Austal has an office to support forward-deployed LCSs operating in the Indo-Pacific region.
USNI News previously reported that Austal was trying to conduct some LCS work in Mobile after sea trials and ship delivery, but before the ships headed through the canal and onto San Diego. Perciavalle said that has continued, but that the ships are coming out of the yard with very little work waiting to be done during the post-shakedown availability. He said he hopes the Navy and the yard can find a way to bring more repair work to Mobile, to ease the strain in San Diego and to fully leverage the dry dock the yard now owns.
Additionally, while his focus is maintaining the ships that Austal built, Perciavalle said “the sky is the limit” in terms of the yard taking on repair and modernization work for Military Sealift Command ships, Coast Guard ships or commercial vessels.
“The facility has been in the past supporting various markets and will continue to do that going forward,” he said of the newly purchased property that also includes deep-water berthing space for in-water repairs in addition to the dry dock for out-of-water repairs.
He noted that the team operating out of Singapore had contributed to the success of overlapping USS Montgomery (LCS-8) and USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) deployments there and that Austal planned to maintain or grow its presence in Singapore.
“Our game plan is there will be at least two ships there going forward, we are fully prepared to support having two ships in Singapore or more,” as well as sending flyaway teams or setting up offices anywhere else the Navy chooses to hub the LCSs or EPFs around the globe.
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October 21, 2020 | International, Naval, Land, C4ISR
U.S. Army Flexes New Land-Based, Anti-Ship Capabilities
Steve Trimble Lee Hudson Finding ever new and efficient ways to sink enemy ships is usually assigned to the U.S. Navy and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force, but not anymore. Though still focused on its primary role of maneuvering against land forces and shooting down air and missile threats, the Army is quietly developing an arsenal of long-range maritime strike options. As the Army carves out an offensive role in the Pentagon's preparations for a mainly naval and air war with China, service officials now seek to develop a capacity for targeting and coordinating strikes on maritime targets with helicopter gunships in the near term and with long-range ballistic missiles by 2025. The Project Convergence 2020 event in September focused the Army on learning how to solve the command and control challenge for a slew of new land-attack capabilities scheduled to enter service by fiscal 2023. The follow-on event next year will expand to include experiments with the Army's command and control tasks in the unfamiliar maritime domain. “I think we have a long way to go in terms of partnering with the Navy for some of the maritime targeting [capabilities],” says Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, the Army's cross-functional team leader for Long-Range Precision Fires. “And I think that'll be a natural evolution into Project Convergence 2021,” Rafferty says, speaking during the Association of the U.S. Army's virtual annual meeting on Oct. 15. The Army operates a small, modest fleet of watercraft, including logistics support vessels and Runnymede-class large landing craft, but service officials have been content to respond to attacks on enemy ships at sea with the Navy's surface combatants and carrier-based fighter squadrons. Last year, the Air Force also revived a maritime strike role by activating the Lockheed Martin AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile on the B-1B fleet. But the Army's position has changed. The AH-64E Capability Version 6, which Boeing started developing in 2018, includes a modernized radar frequency interferometer. The receiver can identify maritime radars, allowing the AH-64E to target watercraft at long range for the first time. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's Strategic Capabilities Office started working in 2016 to integrate an existing seeker used for targeting ships into the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms), which is currently the Army's longest-range surface-to-surface missile at 300 km (162 nm). Beginning in fiscal 2023, the Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is scheduled to begin replacing the Atacms. The Increment 1 version will extend the range of the Army's missiles to 500 km. A follow-on Increment 2 version of PrSM is scheduled to enter service in fiscal 2025, featuring a new maritime seeker now in flight testing by the Army Research Laboratory. “As we begin to develop the PrSM [Increment 2] with the cross-domain capability against maritime and emitting [integrated air defense system] targets, obviously we'll be partnering with the Navy on that,” Rafferty says. Targeting ships from land-based artillery systems is not unique to the Army. The U.S. Marine Corps plans to introduce the Raytheon-Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, firing the ground-based anti-ship cruise missile from a remotely operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. To strike a moving target at ranges beyond the horizon, the Army needs more than an innovative new seeker. A targeting complex linking over-the-horizon sensors with the Atacms and PrSM batteries is necessary. Moreover, the Army will need to adapt command and control procedures to an unfamiliar maritime domain. The annual Project Convergence events offer a laboratory for the Army to prepare the targeting and command and control complex before new weapons enter service. With the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, a medium-range ballistic missile and PrSM also set to enter service in the next three years, the Army is seeking to adapt quickly. Last month, the Army used the first prototype of the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node ground station. An artificial intelligence (AI) program named Prometheus sifted through intelligence information to identify targets. Another AI algorithm called SHOT matched those targets to particular weapons with the appropriate range and destructive power. An underlying fire-control network, called the Advanced Field Artillery Data System, provided SHOT with the location and magazine status of each friendly weapon system. A process that would otherwise take minutes or even hours dwindled—in an experimental setting—to a few seconds. The first Project Convergence event last month focused on the Army's traditional mission against targets on land. The next event will seek to replicate that streamlined targeting process against ships possibly hundreds of miles away. These experiments are intended to help the Army familiarize itself with new tools in the command and control loop, such as automated target-recognition systems and targeting assignments. The event also helps the Army dramatically adapt, in a few years, institutional practices that had endured for decades. “In order for a bureaucracy to change, [it has] to understand the need, and we have to create the use case in order for a bureaucracy to change,” says Gen. Mike Murray, the head of the Army Futures Command. “I think in Project Convergence, what we're able to demonstrate to the senior leaders in the army will further help drive that change.” In a way, the Army is seeking to achieve in the maritime domain a networked sensor and command and control system that the Navy introduced to its fleet nearly two decades ago. To improve the fleet air-defense mission substantially, the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) generally develops a common, shared database of tracks from the multiple airborne, surface and subsurface sensors available to a carrier battle group. But the Navy also is building on the CEC standard. In 2016, a Lockheed F-35B demonstrated the ability to develop a target track of an over-the-horizon enemy warship. The track information was sent via the CEC to a launcher for a Raytheon SM-6. Although primarily an air- and missile-defense interceptor, in this case the SM-6 demonstrated an anti-ship role. A follow-on development SM-6 Block 1B is expected to optimize the weapon system as a long-range, anti-ship ballistic missile with hypersonic speed. More recently, the Navy has been quietly experimenting with its own series of Project Convergence-like experiments. Known as the Navy Tactical Grid experiments, the Navy and Marine Corps organized a series of demonstrations in fiscal 2019, according to the latest budget justification documents. Building on the common operating picture provided by the CEC, the Navy Tactical Grid is possibly experimenting with similar automation and machine-learning algorithms to streamline and amplify the targeting cycle dramatically. A new initiative is now replacing the Navy Tactical Grid experiments. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday tapped Rear Adm. Douglas Small, the head of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, to lead the effort known as Project Overmatch. Small must provide a strategy, no later than early December, that outlines how the Navy will develop the networks, infrastructure, data architecture, tools and analytics to support the operational force. This includes linking hundreds of ships, submarines, unmanned systems and aircraft. “Beyond recapitalizing our undersea nuclear deterrent, there is no higher developmental priority in the U.S. Navy,” Gilday wrote in an Oct. 1 memo that revealed the existence of Project Overmatch. Aviation Week obtained a copy of the document. “I am confident that closing this risk is dependent on enhancing Distributed Maritime Operations through a teamed manned-unmanned force that exploits artificial intelligence and machine learning.” While Small is tasked with creating the “connective tissue,” Gilday directs Vice Adm. James Kilby, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (N9), with accelerating development of unmanned capabilities and long-range fires, Gilday wrote in a separate Oct. 1 memo outlining the details of Project Overmatch. Kilby's assessment must include a metric for the Navy to measure progress and a strategy that appropriately funds each component. His initial plan is also due to Gilday in early December. “Drive coherence to our plans with a long-term, sustainable [and] affordable view that extends far beyond the [future years defense plan],” Gilday wrote. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-army-flexes-new-land-based-anti-ship-capabilities
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September 24, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Italy says it will be equal partner in jet fighter project with UK, Japan | Reuters
Italy said on Saturday it will be an equal partner in the next-generation fighter program with Britain and Japan, as further talks are still underway on the project, including on where to base its headquarters.